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If you weren't there ...
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Senior Janae Stokes knocked down six 3-pointers and had 22 points all together as the USF women's basketball team defeated Pittsburgh, 68-51, Wednesday night at the Sun Dome.
Senior Jessica Lawson added a double-double with 11 points and 11 boards for USF, which won its second BIG EAST game in a row to improve to 2-3 in the league and 11-7 overall. Junior Leondra Doomes-Stephens had 12 points, and junior Sequoyah Griffin also posted 11.
USF hit 51.1 percent from the floor while limiting the Panthers to a 28.8 percent clip. The Bulls also knocked down 9-of-16 3-pointers.
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2 |
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Pittsburgh
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25 |
26 |
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51 |
| USF |
33 |
35 |
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68 |
| Scoring Leaders |
| Player |
FG-A
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3FG-A
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FT-A
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TP
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| Pittsburgh - Harrison |
7-21 |
3-9 |
2-3 |
19 |
| USF - Stokes |
7-15 |
6-10 |
2-2 |
22 |
| Rebounding Leaders |
| Player |
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| Pittsburgh - Cole |
5 |
5 |
10 |
| USF - Lawson |
1 |
10 |
11 |
| Misc. Leaders |
| Player |
Steals
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Assists
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Blocks
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| Pittsburgh - Sims |
2 |
3 |
0 |
| USF - Conner |
2 |
2 |
2 |
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TAMPA - The University of South Florida women's basketball team closed out its short - albeit successful - two-game homestand tonight with an impressive 68-51 win over Pittsburgh at the Sun Dome for its second consecutive BIG EAST win.
Janae Stokes led four players in double figures scoring a game-high 22 points, including 15 in the first half. Leondra Doomes-Stephens added 12 points and Sequoyah Griffin and Jessica Lawson chipped in with 11 points apiece. Lawson would also record her ninth double-double of the season grabbing a game-high 11 rebounds.
The Bulls jumped out of the gate fast scoring all of its points, in the first 7:43 of the game, on three-point field goals to take a 21-11 lead on Janae Stokes' fifth trey of the game with 12:13 left in the first half.
USF (11-7, 2-3 BIG EAST) would keep the Panthers at bay the rest of the first half allowing Pittsburgh to get as close as five points, 23-18, on a lay-up by Chelsea Cole with 8:15 left in the first half.
The Bulls would eventually take a 33-25 lead into the locker room at the break.
USF came out in the second half and didn't let up as they pushed its lead to as many as 19 points twice in the first 10 minutes of the second stanza. The first came on the second of two made free throws with 13:49 left in the game by Lawson, and the second on a lay-up by Lawson with 13:01 left.
Pittsburgh (11-7, 0-5 BIG EAST), however, would make one last push using a 14-3 run from the 13:01 mark to the 4:52 mark when Cole hit the front end of a two shot free throw to cut the Bulls' lead to eight points, 56-48.
Stokes, however would drain her final three-point shot of the game on the next play down court to give USF an 11-point lead, 59-48, and put the Bulls in double figures for the remainder of the game.
On the night the Bulls would shoot 51.1 percent (23-45) from the field and 56.3 percent (9-16) from behind the three-point arc, their best three-point shooting performance since hitting 56 percent (14-25) against Cincinnati on Feb. 28, 2009, and the ninth best percentage in school history for a single game.
USF would also outrebound the Panthers, who were ranked No. 22 last in the ESPN/USA Today Top 25 poll and getting votes in the Associated Press poll, 42-37 for the game.
The Bulls will now hit the road for two straight games starting with a meeting against St. John's on Jan. 23 at 2:30 p.m. in "The World's Most Famous Arena", Madison Square Garden. USF will then have a week off before heading to Ohio to take on Cincinnati on Jan. 30 at noon.
The Bulls will return home on Feb. 2 at 7 p.m. when they Villanova.
USF Postgame Quotes
Head Coach Jose Fernandez
On the team's performance vs. Pittsburgh
"I was really proud of our guys, I think that this team has continued to improve and develop throughout the season. I knew that we needed to do that as the season progressed. We lost Jasmine Wynne early in the first half, and we put the ball in a freshman's hands for the next 30 minutes. Sequoyah Griffin fouls out, sophomore and first year player in the BIG EAST, Jessica Lawson fouls out, and we still win by 17. I think these guys have bought in and they really believe that for us to be successful that we need to defend and we need to take care of the basketball and I think that we have seen that. To look and see all of the newcomers out in the floor, these are all guys who haven't experienced the travels and the riggers of the BIG EAST. We were in a lot of close non conference games and I think that that helped us position ourselves and to close out these types of games."
"When we came out and we got Stokes off that stager and she hit that first one, we went right back to her, just because she is the type of kid that if she is fresh and her feet are set, she has one of the quickest releases and she really doesn't worry about the last shot and just worries about the next one. I think our kids just really executed offensively, we have been shooting between 45 and 53 percent here in the last two to three weeks. But now we have to go on the road, and we don't know Wynne's status but whatever that may be, we will just have to regroup and find a way."
On the development of the new guards...
"We have a lot of games left (in BIG EAST play), we are five games in. With as much as we lost last year, you lose two senior guards, you lose your leading rebounder, and you lose probably our best defender in Brittany Denson, our program wasn't one that we were going to just turn around and reload. We don't have 10 or 12 All-Americans that we can shuffle in and out. We knew that we recruited some kids that if they continued to work and get in the gym and get better and understand what we wanted and how we expected them to play defensively and what we needed them to do offensively in some of our schemes that we could turn out to be a pretty good team. I think that now we are seeing some of that, even in some of our losses, being down by 14 at the half against UConn, being down two at Notre Dame with seven (minutes) to go. Sometimes we need to go through some of those situations to learn and to grow as a team."
Jessica Lawson
On all the early three pointers...
"You can't complain, if they are hitting the threes. Last time I checked three is more than two, so you can't really complain. Once Janae (Stokes) gets started she's on fire. I think that Janae really brought it out of us tonight; she was our fire and our spark. As coach said, when you jump out on them early they start putting their heads down, and Janae did that tonight."
On being prepared for the game ...
"I think that we had a great game plan and I think that our coaches did a good job preparing us for the game, and we shot a big number. We knocked down shots, but I think that we also still have a lot of work to do. I think we battled a little bit on the offensive glass, we still need to get in the gym and get some work done, but I see it coming together. We have changed a lot since the beginning of the season, and I see the pieces of the puzzle coming together."
Janae Stokes
On her shooting performance against Pittsburgh ...
"Coach ran the first play for me, and once I drop one in, he always tries to come back to me. I just knocked them down."
On bouncing back in the Big East...
"I knew that once we got our chemistry developed that we were going to be a great team. Early in the season when you have nine new faces it's hard to teach them, and it's easy to tell them something but it's one thing to do it. I think that once everybody realized that we aren't just talking, and you actually have to perform, that's when we started to come around."
Pittsburgh Postgame Quotes
Head Coach Agnus Berenato
On tonight's game ...
"Congratulations to South Florida. Their shooting in the first half was phenomenal. Give Stokes credit, she was unbelievable; 15 points and I thought that set the tone for the game. They had eight three's, they were 8-12 from three-point range in the first half, that's 24 points. And I think that when you look at the stats, we shut them down, I mean they only scored one three after that, but it was a really big three. We were making a run, it was an eight point game, after we were down 17 and Stokes came through the lane and got free and she knocked that three down on little kid Sarah (Ogoke) who doesn't really play too much. And that put it to 11 and that was like a dagger. I thought there were spots where we played really well and I thought we started to play back like we can play. Right now we are struggling. We are struggling with our confidence and we are struggling to make shots, and that's very obvious. We shot 28 percent. South Florida's defense was very good, but I felt like we had a lot of really open shots that we missed, and when you're hesitant you miss those shots. I really believe the world belongs to the aggressor, and right now we are not being aggressive. Our confidence is shook because we are 0-5, and I think that it has really played with the psyche of our team's minds, so we just go back to work tomorrow and see what happens."
On whether there was anything that USF did early to get open three-point looks ...
"Well we knew who their shooters were, we had great scouts. We knew 21, we knew their shooters, and I just think they were in a zone. I don't remember which one shot it, but she was way out by half court, and there were 10 seconds left, and someone yelled, she thought there were two seconds left, and she threw it, and when she threw it, it went in. I think right then and there I just thought ... it's going to be a tough night. That was kind of indicative of how it went tonight."
